WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Six months after a U.S. cybersecurity bill died in the Senate, some Obama administration officials and lawmakers are optimistic they can get a new law passed amid heightened public awareness of hacking attacks and cyber espionage.

With top intelligence officials warning that cyber attacks have replaced terrorism as the leading threat against the United States, the White House and lawmakers have spent months discussing how to improve the flow of information between the government and the private sector.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Downplaying warnings about the potential for hackers to sabotage U.S. power plants at the click of a mouse, the head of the North American electricity standards group said on Monday he is more concerned about physical rather than cyber threats.

“It takes a small number of crews with explosives and you’ve created not only an outage over an area or a city, but smoke and fire and flash-type stuff,” Gerry Cauley, chief executive of the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC), told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit.

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) – Downplaying warnings about
the potential for hackers to sabotage U.S. power plants at the
click of a mouse, the head of the North American electricity
standards group said on Monday he is more concerned about
physical rather than cyber threats.

“It takes a small number of crews with explosives and you’ve
created not only an outage over an area or a city, but smoke and
fire and flash-type stuff,” Gerry Cauley, chief executive of the
North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC), told the
Reuters Cybersecurity Summit.

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Billionaire environmentalist Elon Musk has quit a Silicon Valley advocacy group formed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg after the group funded ads for senators touting their support for an oil pipeline and oil drilling in Alaska.

Musk leads one of the world’s best known “green” companies, electric carmaker Tesla. A Tesla spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday that the South African-born entrepreneur preferred not to elaborate on his reasons for leaving FWD.us.

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON, May 10 (Reuters) – Billionaire
environmentalist Elon Musk has quit a Silicon Valley advocacy
group formed by Facebook (FB.O: Quote, Profile, Research) founder Mark Zuckerberg after
the group funded ads for senators touting their support for an
oil pipeline and oil drilling in Alaska.

Musk leads one of the world’s best known “green” companies,
electric carmaker Tesla (TSLA.O: Quote, Profile, Research). A Tesla spokeswoman told
Reuters on Friday that the South African-born entrepreneur
preferred not to elaborate on his reasons for leaving FWD.us.

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) – Senator John McCain introduced
a bill on Thursday that would uproot the current system of
bundling cable channels and let U.S. customers pay for select
channels on an “a la carte” basis, a move likely to face stiff
industry opposition.

The influential Republican’s bill, dubbed the Television
Consumer Freedom Act, comes at a time when cable prices are
rising and pressure is mounting for programmers to stop forcing
consumers to pay for subscriptions to lower-rated cable networks
in order to watch more popular channels.

WASHINGTON, May 9 (Reuters) – U.S. federal
telecommunications regulators are pushing ahead with efforts to
bring faster Internet service to commercial and private airline
flights.

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday started
deliberations on a proposal that would offer a new type of
in-flight broadband service promising U.S. fliers higher Wi-Fi
speeds and better connections.

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Internet connections between Syria and the outside world were cut off on Tuesday, according to data from Google Inc and other global Internet companies.

Google’s Transparency Report pages showed traffic to Google services pages from the country, embroiled in a civil war that has lasted more than two years, suddenly stopping shortly before 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT). Google traffic reports continued to show no activity there about four hours after the drop-off.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated venture capitalist and former wireless and cable lobbyist Tom Wheeler to be the top U.S. media and telecommunications regulator.

If approved by the Senate, Wheeler would become chairman of the Federal Communications Commission at a time when the agency is preparing for a major reshuffling of ownership of radio airwaves and trying to catch up to rapidly changing technology.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will nominate venture capitalist and former wireless and cable lobbyist Tom Wheeler on Wednesday to head the Federal Communications Commission, according to a White House official.

After decades in and around Washington telecom circles, Wheeler would take the reins of the FCC as the industry prepares for a major reshuffling of ownership of radio airwaves and as the agency tries to catch up to rapidly changing technology.